Finding Remus
by Liefe Black
Summary: AU. Rose Black and Theodore Longbottom find an abandoned boy at the Leaky Cauldron OC/OC


A/N: This is a one-shot (or that's what I think) that takes place in what I call Adoption-verse. The main story for this AU is **not** published. Yet. Sorry.

So anyways, here's a summary for the main story, tentatively titled **Adoption.**

Hermione, about a year after the final battle travels back in time to 1934, when Tom Riddle was six. (just a warning to any Canon-lovers, this story is loosely based on Canon. I use mostly canon characters, but I've messed around with their ages and stuff, so yeah.) When she time-traveled, she was pregnant with Rose (Ron's child). After she adopts Tom and Rose is born she meets and marries Alphard Black. Teddy is my nickname for Theodore Longbottom, an OC. He is NOT Teddy Lupin.

Please enjoy!(and forgive any Americanisms, please :D)

Teddy is 26

Rose is 26

Remus is 4

Teddy! Time to get up!" Rose yelled up the stairs to her still-slumbering husband. Moving back into the kitchen to get her tea, Rose maneuvered her belly around the counter and through the sliding glass doors that made up one wall of the kitchen. The teacup warm in her hands, Rose settled down in her favorite chair to watch the sunrise in the heated indoor porch and wait for her husband. Ten minutes later, Teddy stepped out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee, dropped a kiss on her head then stooped to kiss her properly, running loving hands over her eight month tummy.

"Mmm..." Rose moaned. "Good morning to you, too, love." Teddy sat down on the wicker rocking chair to her left and yawned.

" So we're headed to Diagon Alley, today, no?" he checked, gulping his rapidly cooling coffee.

"Mhmm. At ten."

"At ten! Why on earth are we up so early then?" Teddy asked, incredulous. "Its pushing eight!"

"Exactly." Rose said crisply, giving her husband a cool look. He glared darkly and muttered, causing Rose to laugh softly. Teddy had never been a morning person. Right now, his sandy blond hair falling into his blue-hazel eyes. His skin was lightly tanned, darker than her own pale skin tone, his lean shoulders well muscled beneath his sleep shirt. His head was sagging onto his shoulders and she watched affectionately as he began to doze.

"I'm gonna go get dressed, love" Rose said, slipping back into the house, hearing Teddy murmur an affirmative from his chair. Rose walked down the hall from the kitchen to the master bedroom and the en-suite master bathroom. Half an hour later, she stepped out of the bathroom to the smell of breakfast. Smiling, Rose opened her side of the walk in closet. After a minutes thought, Rose chose a purple flower print pregnancy shirt, a well worn pair of jeans and a warmly knit light gray cardigan. Emerging from the bedroom, she wrapped an arm around Teddy where he stood at the stove, making pancakes and scrambled eggs.

"Hey, love. All ready to go Christmas shopping?" he asked turning to her and dropping a kiss on her forehead. He must have changed while she had been showering, Rose thought, for he was now dressed in a sea-glass green polo and a dark gray v-necked sweater with her favorite pair of dark washed jeans. His plain black robes sat next to her deep purple ones over the back of a kitchen chair.

"oh you bet, but not until I've had some of those delicious pancakes and eggs – I'm starving!" Rose laughed, and teddy wrinkled his nose at her.

"Of course, eating for two, aren't you?" his gaze dropped lovingly to her rounded stomach.

An hour later, the couple stepped through the floo to the leaky cauldron. Seeing a colleague, Teddy greeted him and was pulled off by his over-enthusiastic coworker. Teddy glanced apologetically at his wife, who waved him off, and slid into a booth with him. Rose walked around the bar and was about to sit down in an armchair, in the dark shadowy corner that was her favorite part of the Leaky, when she saw what looked like a small child curled up in it. Startled, Rose took a step back and studied the child. The light wasn't good enough to make out the boys exact hair color, but it looked to be a honey brown. He was so pale he looked sickly, and Rose's eyes narrowed when she took in his frail shoulders and thin muggle clothes. He looked like he hadn't had a good meal in days, and Rose's new-found mothering instinct drove her to stand over the boy and place a hand on his shoulder. She was startled when he jumped, and sucked in a horrified breath when she saw the dark circles under his eyes, and the scratches on his face. He looked frantic, and despite his shivering, he leaped from the chair and made to run away. Rose's hand caught his wrist -far too thin, she thought- and stopped him. He was breathing quickly and wheezily, and his hand was warmer than normal. Rose's eyebrows furrowed. The warm hand suggested fever, and the chest congestion suggested a cold. Turning him gently, Rose brushed her fingers though his sweaty fringe and discretely felt his forehead, inwardly cursing when it felt warm enough to indicate a fever.

"Whats your name, love?" Rose asked, slipping into healer mode.

"R-remus Lu-lupin, ma'am." he muttered staring resolutely at his shoes.

"And how old are you?" In response, Remus held up four fingers. "Four?"

"Uh huh."

"Do you have a winter cloak?"

"Nah uh. I ripped my old one, and my mummy and daddy are taking me to get a new one" Remus replied, looking around for his parents.

"Do you know where they are?"

"Yeah, they're over there" he pointed to a couple sitting at the bar. Rose frowned, noticing how drunk the two were – and they seemed barely seventeen. How could they have a four year old. Realizing that Remus was looking up at her nervously, she straightened.

"Come on, lets go over to them." she said. Remus grinned and ran to his parents, Rose following more sedately. When Remus tugged of the man's sleeve, however, he turned and snapped at him. Seeing his face, Rose decided that he was around twenty, older that she had originally thought. Remus turned to the woman, pulling on her robe, but she yanked it out of his grip, sneering. Puzzled and angry, Rose strode quickly over to the couple.

"What is going on here?" at her arrival the two glanced at each other nervously.

"This kid just ran over here and started grabbing us and calling us mummy and daddy." the man said.

"I'll take that to mean that you're not really his parents?"

"No!" the woman exclaimed

"But Mummy! What do you mean, you're not my parents?" Remus cried. Angry, the man span and before Rose could stop him, he backhanded the boy, flattening him. Incensed, Rose stepped forward about to let loose on the man as she picked the crying boy up off the floor, when a hand came down on her shoulder.

"May I ask why you are hitting children, Mr...?" Teddy asked in full Auror mode. His mother had put him in Auror training when he was younger, but he had quit after a year, unlike his twin, Frank, and had become a healer apprentice at St. Mungo's, where they had met. Still, he was able to intimidate with the best of them.

"Ah, Lupin, sir. John Lupin. He was..." the man trailed off, shrugging.

"In that case, Mr Lupin, I suggest that you take yourself and your wife home immediately and take some Hangover Potion. Next time I see you hitting children, however..." Teddy trailed off, his threat hanging in the air.

"Y-yes sir." the couple hurried to the door, and with a pair of cracks, apparated away. Teddy turned back to wife, all anger gone from his face and voice.

"And who is this?" he asked gently.

"This is Remus. Remus, meet Teddy, my husband."

"Hello sir." Remus said timidly before shivering. Rose pulled out her wand and flicked it, conjuring a child-sized cloak and wrapping it around his shoulders. Remus's eyes fluttered shut and a moment later, he was asleep.

"Teddy..." Rose whispered, glancing at him. Teddy gave her a searching look and nodded.

"He's coming with us, at least for now." he said decisively. "Let me take him though." Teddy scooped the sleeping boy into his arms, and together they stepped into the floo and shouted, "Longbottom Cottage!"


End file.
